Oppo Find X7 Ultra Review: Impressive Yet Inaccessible

After withdrawing its Find X series of camera-focussed premium phones from India in 2020 (after the launch of its Find X2), Oppo seems to have suddenly become interested in the ultra-premium segment once again. As brands like OnePlus and Oppo (and soon Vivo) collectively attempt to dethrone Samsung in India in the foldables segment, Xiaomi and Oppo now seem interested (or confident) in taking things up a notch and competing with Samsung’s premium Galaxy S Ultra series as well, which for years remained untouched.

Oppo’s Find X7 Ultra isn’t coming to India this year, but Oppo seems to be testing the waters by handing us a review unit. You can think of it as an interest check for future releases. With this in mind, I got to use Oppo’s latest camera flagship for a few weeks and I must say that I’m quite impressed. More so, because of the progress Oppo has made since the Find X2 (or Find X2 Pro) released in India about 4 years ago.

Oppo Find X7 Ultra Review: Price

Mainly available in China and neighbouring markets, the Find X7 Ultra is priced from CNY 5,999 (roughly Rs. 70,000) for the base 12GB RAM and 256GB storage variant, which I received for review. The phone tops out at 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, priced at CNY 6,999 (roughly Rs. 80,000). If you are thinking of importing one into the country do keep in mind that such products are heavily taxed by customs.

Oppo Find X7 Ultra Review: Design

I’m quite confident that just a handful of us would check out a premium device (like a Pixel Fold) even if it is not officially sold in India. This is more because of how unique these devices are and the obvious attention they garner from onlookers.

The Oppo Find X7 Ultra does look quite interesting in the sense that it’s very different from what Vivo’s X100 Pro, Google’s Pixel 8 Pro, and Samsung’s Galaxy S24 Ultra currently offer (in terms of design) in this segment. Oppo’s gone with a split dual-finish design, which not only looks premium, but feels premium as well. Weighing 221 grams, it’s expectedly heavy but the heft also adds to its overall premium feel. The phone is available in – Ocean Blue, Sepia Brown, and Tailored Black – all of which appear unique not just because of the colour, but also because of the use of unique materials. The Ocean Blue finish which I tried out for a short while has a nautical theme to it and has an upper half (in polished white) made of glass, while the brown and black colourways have a metal panel.

The Oppo Find X7 Ultra’s dual finish design is IP68 rated for dust and water resistance

The Tailored Black unit that we have has a double stitch running around the bottom-half of the circular camera module meeting at the centre and running downwards towards the bottom, with an Oppo logo placed in between. While all the colourways have their lower halves covered in vegan leather, only the black version gets the double stitch.

This vegan leather covered half along with the curved sides also makes the phone easier to grip (compared to glass). I often found myself placing my middle finger on the raised camera module for support, when shooting photos. The metal camera module is quite thick but has a nice track (fine grooves) on the ring that does not move like an aperture/focus ring. It will remind camera enthusiasts of Hasselblad’s iconic lenses because of the orange dot, which is usually found on the lens shoulder (next to the mount). The same orange accent can also be found on the three-stage Alert slider which apart from switching between vibrate and ringer modes also comes with VIP mode that disables cameras, mics and GPS positioning when activated.

Overall, the Find X7 Ultra’s design sure has a lot of character and uniqueness while also being practical for daily use (smudge-free and added grip). And it manages to look the part, all while being IP68-rated for dust and water resistance.

The Find X7 Ultra’s Alert slider has a special VIP mode as well

There is a reason why the above-mentioned competing smartphones don’t have faux leather rear panels and it’s mainly down to long-term wear and tear, which is something I could not test out during the review period with the Find X7 Ultra, even though I have used it without the provided soft TPU case for the most part. At the same time, the Find X7 Ultra will be more durable compared to glass backed phones as the vegan leather is usually bonded to a plastic panel, meaning that the rear panel won’t crack when dropped.

Oppo Find X7 Ultra Review: Specifications and software

The Find X7 Ultra may not be a drastic upgrade over the Find X6 Pro in terms of its overall feature set, but it is packed to the brim with the latest hardware making it worthy of its Ultra moniker. There’s a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 SoC, up to 16GB of LPDDR5X RAM, and up to 512GB of UFS 4.0 storage. Oppo also has a dedicated security chip for handling security-related data (keys, fingerprints) and more locally. There’s a dual nano SIM tray with dual 5G standby, NFC, Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 5.4, an IR blaster and support for the usual satellite positioning systems. The phone packs a 5,000mAh battery and supports 100W wired and 50W wireless charging.

As explained in my first impressions, this is a Chinese review unit and not a global one. And so, it comes loaded with the Chinese version of Oppo’s ColorOS 14, which is based on Android 14. There’s tons of preinstalled Chinese apps, but this was not a problem as all of these could be uninstalled. Unlike the Indian version of ColorOS 14 I also noticed that I could strip the phone of every other native app as well, leaving only the Dialer, SMS, Camera, Gallery, and Settings app on the phone, which is shockingly unusual for a Chinese smartphone.

After I was done uninstalling all of the unwanted apps, I was literally left with a handful of apps and for once this selection did not even include Google’s usual default selection. As happy as I was to see an Android phone devoid of any unwanted apps, I had to install the Google Play Store and it’s only then that I could get access to the usual third-party and Google apps that most of us use on a daily basis.

The Oppo Find X7 Ultra’s curved edge display glass is also curved at the top and bottom

Soon enough reality hit. Despite installing Google Search, Assistant (and most of Google’s defaults on the phone), it is not possible to add Google Assistant as a lockscreen shortcut nor can it be summoned with the power button. The only method of activating Google Assistant on this device is to tap the icon on the homescreen. Google’s auto-fill service for passwords and more is also not available, so you will have to download a third-party password management app or go with Oppo’s native service.

The software also has plenty of AI bits, but enabling them is a task as most of it is in Mandarin. However, you do get easy access to a new generative AI object removal tool in the Gallery app and it works on par with what I’ve seen on Google’s Pixel 8 Pro. Oppo’s tool is very good at generating textures behind objects in not so complex edits, but fumbles a bit with complex edits. However, these aren’t too noticeable. It also works offline (after downloading a 1GB AndesGPT package) but the offline results aren’t as impressive.

Oppo Find X7 Ultra Review: Performance

The Oppo Find X7 Ultra performs as expected for a premium flagship. It managed a score of 19,85,279 in AnTuTu along with 2,162 and 6,352 in Geekbench’s single and multi-score tests respectively. Gaming performance is top notch and I was able to play Call of Duty: Mobile at Medium graphics and Ultra frame rate (locked at 120FPS), with touch sampling working flawlessly. The phone barely warmed up even after 30 minutes of back to back gaming. The dual speaker setup sounded loud and felt immersive.

The Oppo Find X7 Ultra’s battery easily lasts a day and half and also charges up quickly

The 6.82-inch QHD+ AMOLED display shows accurate colours with the Pro Screen colour mode enabled and the 120Hz dynamic refresh rate (LTPO) makes all software interactions feel buttery smooth. With a local brightness of 1,600 nits and peak brightness of 4,500 nits viewing content outdoors was not a problem. The ProXDR display also supports Ultra HDR photos and Dolby Vision content appeared as expected. The in-display fingerprint reader also worked flawlessly.

Battery life was quite impressive with the phone easily lasting a day and half with heavy use. The battery lasts a whole day even with heavy camera usage, which was nice to have. The Find X7 Ultra lasted 26 hours and 36 minutes in our video loop battery test, which is impressive for a device with QHD+ display. Charging is pretty quick with the phone managing 50 percent charge in 15 minutes and completing the charge in 38 minutes.

Oppo Find X Ultra Review: Cameras

The Find X7 Ultra gets an upgraded camera setup with two 50-megapixel dual periscope telephoto cameras

Just like the Find X6 Pro, the Find X7 Ultra is all about the Hasselblad partnership, branding aside, Oppo told me that it’s mainly about meeting Hasselblad’s standard’s in terms of colour-reproduction. While the Auto mode produces slightly saturated colours (which are again guided by Hasselblad), there is an Auto Master mode and a Pro Master mode as well. The Master mode simplifies the fully manual Pro mode by providing user-friendly toggles that one would associate with image editing (like saturation, contrast, sharpness and vignette), while the Pro Master adds Manual mode-like adjustments (WB, AF, EV, autofocus, ISO etc.).

The default Auto camera mode is more colour accurate than the Auto Master mode which is more focussed on mimicking a Hasselblad camera (tap image to expand)

However, the Auto Master mode has some default presets for sharpening and vignette which according to Oppo replicates the output of the Hasselblad’s X2D 100C camera. While I liked the colour output and sharpness from both the Auto and (Auto) Master mode, I found that the Auto mode does a better job of accurately representing a given scene. The Auto Master mode adds a lot of emotion by adding contrast but also tends to tone down the colours quite a bit. These are better suited for Instagram uploads without any editing whatsoever.

The Oppo Find X7 Ultra manages good zoom performance till 30X (tap to expand image)

The rather versatile camera system is not really focussed on zoom performance at the far end but on delivering rock-solid imaging between 0.6X and 6X (and all stops in between). The camera system managed good quality photos till 10X zoom. Beyond this point resolved details start to take a hit but the camera holds it all together till 30X zoom. Beyond this zoom level, images end up looking flat with textures appearing like paintings. Zoom performance is good even in low light but only up to 6X, which is the optical zoom limit.

Primary camera performance in daylight is near flawless (tap image to expand)

Colours appear quite natural despite odd indoor lighting conditions (captured using the 3X telephoto camera) (tap image to expand)

The primary camera captures very detailed images with excellent colour reproduction and dynamic range no matter the lighting condition. Despite the binned 12-megapixel resolution, there’s plenty of room to go pixel peeping as image sharpening is also well under control.

The 3X and 6X telephoto cameras do a fantastic job at their native focal lengths. Details are spot on and not oversharpened and the autofocus is also instantaneous even in dim lighting, provided your subject is kind of steady and not in motion. Both cameras being periscope telephotos can also shoot closeups, which pack in a ton of detail right when you need it. One detail that I noticed was the constant auto-switching to 3X when shooting using the 6X camera. This only happens when shooting in low light (if the lighting conditions are too dim) and you will notice a deterioration in overall quality when this happens. Switching to Portrait mode, edge detection is not flawless, but on par with the competition. Selfies come out well in all lighting conditions with decent edge detection when captured in Portrait mode.

The Find X7 Ultra performs really well with close-up and macro photography (tap to expand image)

The 0.6X ultra-wide also performs on par with the competition with good resolved detail and textures, but has limited dynamic range meaning there’s less detail especially in the shadows. Since Oppo did not hold back on camera hardware, this camera also packs in autofocus letting me click some excellent macro shots.

The Find X7 Ultra’s ultrawide camera does a really good job when capturing low-light photos (tap image to expand)

Selfies captured by the Find X7 Ultra show good detail and edge-detection (tap image to expand)

While the camera performance hits above the belt, video performance was also equally impressive. Oppo’s Cinematic mode however still needs a lot of work with edge detection. The phone is capable of capturing 4K 60fps video on all 4 cameras. Colour consistency is on point between all four cameras, but dynamic range suffers a bit with the ultra-wide camera. Overall video recording capability is quite impressive and comes close to an iPhone 15 Pro Max, but it’s still not there yet and you notice this mainly while panning. Regardless, this is some of the best footage I’ve come across on an Android smartphone lately, so it is right there at the top.

Oppo Find X7 Ultra Review: Verdict

Oppo’s gamble by going with two periscope telephoto cameras has surely paid off this year and it makes the Find X7 Ultra a solid upgrade even if you happen to own a Vivo X100 Pro (Review) or a Google Pixel 8 Pro (Review) and want to get a taste of the ‘Ultra’ club. While I haven’t got a chance to compare its image quality, the Find X7 Ultra does get many things right when compared to the competition.

It has a very premium and unique looking design which stands out from the glass laden flagships from competing brands, cameras are top notch, and the phone also offers fast wired and wireless charging which can put Samsung and Pixel flagships to shame. The software experience (even on our Chinese unit) is not bad at all as everything is where you would expect it to be, provided you can do with the lack of regular Google integrations (Hey Google, Auto-fill service etc.), which are available on most Android devices today. Battery life may not match the OnePlus 12 (Review) and the Vivo X100 Pro, but it comes pretty close.

For reasons best known to Oppo, the brand has decided not to get this rather capable camera-centric flagship to India this year. While many would consider purchasing a premium sub-Rs. 90,000 device from Oppo to be a leap of faith, the proof is indeed in the pudding and the photos above surely speak for themselves.